Right-Click Menu Selected

A different menu is displayed when you right-click into the viewport's canvas with a node selected. In this case, you will see all the entries of the standard menu plus additional functions for animation and curves. Some of the entries also have submenus. This menu is exactly the same for all node types and therefore only discussed once. Here are the available commands:

Entries without Submenus

Select Mode

Here you can see whether the “Selection” mode is active or not. If you are currently using one of the transformation or particle tools you can switch back to RealFlow's standard selection mode with this entry.

Del key

This function deletes a key at the current time for the currently selected parameter.

Open Curves

This is a link to RealFlow's “Curve Editor” and shows all of a node's animated parameters. You can then select the desired curve(s) and edit it/them.

Del All keys

To remove all animation keys of the currently selected node, use this option. Please note that only the animation keys will be deleted; the curves themselves will not be removed and they are still available as a property where you can add new keys. If you want to delete individual curves, please do this manually from the parameter's own right-click menu.

Del All curves

It is also possible to delete all curves of the currently selected node with a single click. Please note that the keys will be removed as well.

Go to next key/Go to previous key

With this function you can easily access the next and previous keys of an animation. This function works relative to the current position of the timeline slider.

Load Screen Texture...

The viewport's default gradient can be replaced with a custom image. Please bear in mind that the used bitmap will not be saved with your layout and you have to reload it with each launch of RealFlow.

View Screen Texture

When a bitmap is used as a screen texture, this menu entry becomes active. Now it is possible to toggle the image's visibility and show either the default background or the texture.

Zoom All

With this function all scene elements fit into the viewport.

Zoom Selected

If you want to fit the currently selected node(s) into the viewport, click on this entry.

Center Selected

The currently active object(s) are grouped around the viewport's midpoint. Of course, the nodes are not physically displaced – this is only an adaption of the display.

Follow Selected

This feature is great for animation, because the selected objects will remain in the viewport's centre during animation and you will not lose focus.

"Edit" Submenu

Move

When “Move” is active, the currently selected object shows three coloured arrows. Each colour represents one of the three spatial directions: the X axis is red, Y is displayed in green, and the Z direction is blue . The node can be moved along one of these directions by dragging the arrow – the other two directions are locked at this moment. With the coloured squares it is possible to move the object in two directions, e.g. XZ or XY. You can always see which directions are currently active, because they are displayed in yellow. The “Move” tool's shortcut is M.

Rotate

To rotate an object, point the mouse cursor over one of the surrounding circles and drag. The active circle turns yellow and the object will follow your motion until you release the mouse. Rotations can only be performed in one direction at a time. The “Rotate” tool's shortcut is E.

Scale

The mode of operation is similar to “Move” and “Rotate”, but here the object's dimensions are changed. There is also a small cube in the middle of the coordinate axes. When you click and drag the mouse over this box, all axes turn yellow and it is possible to scale the node in all three dimensions simultaneously. The “Scale” tool's shortcut is R.

"Add key" Submenu

"Add" Submenu

From this entry you can open a submenu where you have access to all available node types. Instead of using the “Icon Bar” or “Menu Bar”, nodes can be added from here as well. The elements are grouped. You can also see two more functions:

Add to Default Hub

When this option is active, new nodes will be made globally available and can interact with any other element.

Set Local Axis by Default

RealFlow's standard axis system is local. You can change this here and use the global system instead.

"View" Submenu

This submenu shows the different viewing modes: “Front”, “Top”, “Side”, “Perspective”.

"Scene Shading" Submenu

If you want to change RealFlow's shading modes quickly you can do this with the following entries: “Bounding Box”, “Wireframe”, “Flat shaded”, “Smooth Shaded”. There are also two more function explained separately below.

Wireframe Back Faces

This feature gives you the possibility to show the inside of objects when their normals are inverted.

Textured

RealFlow also supports textures and reads out an object's UV coordinates. To activate the textured view, choose “Textured”.

"Show" Submenu

This menu contains a list with all of RealFlow's node types and you can choose which elements you want to display or hide in the viewport simply by checking or unchecking the desired entries.

Grid

To hide or show the viewport grid, please choose this option.

RealFlow Nodes

By default all available node types are visible in the viewport. Uncheck an entry to hide a node type.

Selection Highlighting

When a node or scene element is selected it is highlighted and displayed with a bright green colour to separate it from the other nodes. In some cases, this highlight effect is not desired and can be confusing. A very good example where “Selection Highlighting” will be switched off is most probably (interactive) meshing: when a mesh is not highlighted you will have a much better view of its polygon structure. It will also be easier to evaluate its quality and recognize subtle changes during the meshing process.